Strength and Weakness
by Silver Blazen
Summary: She always thought she found her hard core resilience by cheating the game of death, but when she looks into his deep blue eyes she knows that he is her shield against the storms she faces. When he looks into her green eyes he knows she will be the light that beckons him out of the void. Post CAWS one shot.


**Strength and Weakness**

**All characters belong to Marvel Comics**

**I own nothing**

* * *

Gray light. The shade of the fading world she knew caressed over her face. Copper ringlets of her long hair lashed against her pale cheeks. She cut through the tall clusters of grass; her tactical boots sloshed in the murky puddles. Natasha felt the utter sense of desolation compromise the guarded layers of her heart.

Project: Insight was incomplete. Recovery was needed. Natasha knew that her injuries weren't severe enough to become trapped inside a hospital room for three weeks —blood was just blood. She bad become immune to pain both physical and emotional—keeping her unbreakable spirit locked underneath the walls of the lethal, unpredictable and remorseful Soviet assassin: the Black Widow—a daughter unmade and resurrected from the Red Room.

Natasha always felt the coldness penetrate deep when she was forced to watch the blood drain from her veins; force to feel a bullet slice the muscle of her shoulder and the knives grace over her ivory skin. In despite of her tortuous past, she wore many masks of the seducer, actress, dancer and efficient killer. With each moment of enduring a spike of pain surge in her veins, she never grasped onto the ideal of weakness and always pushed her limits without feeling guilt.

It was cruel and secluded way to live each day loading up a gun, and changing her passport. The game of life and death made her become imprisoned in her own web she had weaved to survive-she had lost many friends along the dark and narrow path she chose while leaving a trail of blood for her demons to chase her.

Spending years trying to erase her past, wiping her red ledger of all the victims she infiltrated, seduced and destroyed. She wanted to regain her true existence back: Natalia Alianovna Romannova.

She knew there would always be a debt to be owed -a payment written in the blood of a good man she allowed herself to get close and ruin a chance of having freedom. There was no easy road to be taken. No escape from entwining threads in the shadows of her stolen past.

Now, she was reaching a standstill inside her scarred heart. She felt the harrowing dread crawl over her rigid bones. Natasha narrowed her green eyes on the footprints in the soggy earth as she near the edge of the Potomatic River.

Squashing down another knot of doubt, Natasha followed the faint drops of red- unmistakably spilled blood in the patches of disturbed mud. A dulling ache began to thrum in her ribs as she lifted her head and stared passively at the black smoke entangling within distant ashen cloud over.

"No," she drew out a shuttering heave of a breath; her heart collapsed into the pit of her stomach and face became colorless as she sauntered closer to the area of tall weeds and crushed stone of the trickling shoreline.

Clenching her jaw, Natasha refused to allow her vulnerability seep out of her fierce and defiant exterior.

She didn't want to believe in the truth that suddenly became etched over the cracks of her heart. "He's not dead." She heaved a desperate breath, her lungs constricted against the walls of her chest as a fresh layer of tears threatened to prick in the depth of her sharpened green eyes.

Fiercely, she scoffed away at the emotions betraying her, the fullness of her lips held a disdainful curl as she frantically searched over the muddy bank.

Her heart flipped-flopped in her chest as she halted in her steps, boots sunk into the mud. Everything stopped. One breath managed to pierce from her lungs as her eyes settled on a familiar pair brown leather boots positioned on the edge of the shore. Feeling combustion of ease, Natasha lifted her hand to her lips and spoke into the comm device wrapped over her wrist gauntlet.

"Sam," she said softly, trying to suppress the waves of uncertainty. "I found Roger's location tell Fury to bring standard evac...From the blood I found I'm guessing the Captain is wounded badly. We need to bring him to the hospital before he bleeds out more."

"Got it! Natasha we're contacting Stark. Agent Hill has given us the clearance to bring Cap to hospital."

"Affirmative," Natasha returned, she scrambled quickly over the bushes and reached Steve's laden form. "Give me a few minutes to resuscitate him."

She crashed to knees, feeling the dampness of the earth seep through her leather uniform-she didn't care at the moment. Instead she stared at the tattered blue and red material of Captain America's Golden Age uniform, the same one in which Steve had stolen from the exhibit during the early hours of the morning. It was a part of his battle plan to take a stand against HYDRA-Alexander Pierce- and the infamous Winter Soldier. He lay flat on his back, almost lifeless and unresponsive. _Dammit._

"Steve," she urged in a desperate and breathless tone; she had to remain calm and place her trust into him that he was going to make out alive. He was Captain America. Time was her enemy. "Listen to my voice, Rogers," she coxed him once more. Her green orbs swelled with tears and she tilted her head down. She was close enough to feel his body temperature dropping at excessive rates. He was fading.

"We need you to come back to us."

She framed her shaky hands over the stark and chiseled skin of his face. Smears of blood dripped over her knuckles as her fingers traced over the sharpness of his blemished jaw. He can't die. She couldn't tell if the bullets were still in his stomach and the planes of his back. All she saw was blood pouring out of him. Bright and shades of maroon and crimson was blossoming through his uniform, the gunshot wounds were growing deeper into his firm muscle. She was holding onto him. She refused to let him go.

Natasha dipped her head closer, allowing her warm breath to dance over his laden cut-stone features. Her lips shadowed over the gashes and her hand splayed over his blood drenched chest. "You can't give up the fight, Steve. The war hasn't ended and we need Captain America to lead us."

Gritting her teeth, Natasha pumped the hard muscle of his pectorals in rhythmical and jerky jabs with her clenched fists against his ribs. She knew he was capable to fight against the pain. "You're not going to die on my watch, Rogers." she snarled, wet smoldering tears streaked down the sides of her tensed face. She pumped his chest with a stronger ease of her fists, wanting to feel the rise and fall of his chest against her knuckles.

"Come on..." She clamped her eyelids tightly shut, allowing her torrent thoughts to trail back to the moments they've shared together with Avengers and solo recon and extraction missions over international borders and uncharted islands with the STRIKE team.

"Rogers?" she whispered, her fraught voice becoming clusters of dry sobs, she pulled back slight and raked her glistening eyes over his battered body, blood aimlessly soaked through the blue material of the lower half of his uniform, and she saw the glimmers of Soviet bullets—the Winter Soldier's handiwork lodged in his sculpted mid-section. Pain flooded in her veins at the moment she gazed intently at the lines of blood trickling out of his paling lips and staining his pasty face: fierce red aimlessly reminding her that death always came to those she loved. It was sick and morbid game of the heart.

Feeling her gut churning with gelid amounts of distress, Natasha fumbled her hands over the leather straps attached to the broad span of his shoulders. She latched her eyes directly on his chiseled and pallid face and felt the wrenching grief encroaching around her; writhing her soul into twisted threads and making her heart break into thousand, jaded pieces of torn and diminished hope.

Steve was going to bleed to death. The nearest hospital was a few miles away from the river. Using all her instincts; Natasha yanked off unceremoniously the sodden material of his sleeve and firmly applied clinical pressure over his lower abdomen. "The world needs you, Steve," she managed to release a raw snarl against the tears blurring over her obscured eyes. She held her gaze steady on his lax face. She slammed her effectual fist hard into his chest, and cried out. "I need you, dammit!"

Natasha still couldn't will herself to stop pumping his chest and forcing back the intakes of air into his filled lungs. She needed him more than he could ever know, more than Clint but the lack of movement of his smooth, plush lips lulled her to believe that he was gone-the only good and earnest man in her life with a no ledger to wipe clean had fallen into the cold hands of death.

Wiping away her tears, the Russian spy narrowed her face down in utter defeat and inadvertently brushed his dormant lips with the warmth emanating from her quivering mouth as she whispered in a gentle, uncharacteristic pleading tone, "You can't die on me. Please, Steve open your eyes and look at me."

Keeping her hand with ineptitude poise on his jugular, Natasha enclosed her tone arm around his heavy, broad shoulders, and she held his head steady against to her as the soft swells of her ample breasts, allowing heat to pool against his blood stained torso.

Pain stabbed into her chest like vicious serrated knives. Her arms tightened around him. She gave him enough warmth to protect him from shivering against the cool breeze wavering off the restless water. She rocked his massive body slightly; unleashing tears of anguish, letting them soak into the royal blue material of his uniform not sensing pale azure eyes watching her unleash all fragile emotions from the shadows of the looming trees.

"Steve," she said weakly squelch, watching flecks of blood sputter out his paling lips: blood dripping fiercely down his bruised chin. She pulled him close to her chest; lacing her fingers through his mussed blonde hair. She listened to his hitching breath vibrating against his kinked ribs; she dipped her head down, pressing burning sense of consuming warmth against his scraped forehead.

Strange and ominous sensations whirled in her veins as breathed in the dense air, feeling a slow cold burn of dread sear against her skin as his face drained of color.

"No," Natasha release a frantic pitch, holding his head steadily against her breasts; she cupped her hand underneath his sharp clench of his jaw, feeling the blood ooze against her flat palm as she encompassed heat on the blemished thumb gently traced against the edges of his jaw and when her gut seize against knots of doubt; Natasha tipped her head down to the crest of his shoulder. Her urging mouth overshadowed the rough arch of his marred lip with a loving embrace of wet heat before she crashed all emotions hard and unabating against his soft lips.

She had no idea how much time had passed. She didn't care. Her thoughts were spiraling in her mind as she felt the sensation of relief merged into the even rhythmic pulses of soft kiss that assured her that he wasn't backing down from the fight.

"Tasha…" he whispered against the swell of her lips, flexing his fingers over her hand, like a desperate grip as if he was drowning. He managed to swallow thickly, trying to regain the ebbing reserves of his unbidden strength.

Steve angled his head to the side and coughed out a stream of water, gasping for heavy gulps of air. Natasha's teal eyes widened as she slightly felt her body rein back just enough to stare into his light, fathomless cobalt eyes shining against the shafts of hazy light piercing from the grayness of entangled clouds cover.

Summoning his reserves of effort, Steve lifted his gloved hand and stroked his fingers through the damp scarlet locks draping over her face. He blinked a few times before meeting her gaze; he curved the edges of his swollen lips into an expanse of an honest smile.

"It's good to see you, Nat," he whispered, holding her stare with his fathomless blue eyes. She became lost in flecks of steel and crystal azure in that moment when she fully disarmed herself and felt the absence of her sins dissolve when his wet lips touched her skin.

She smiled. Relief encased over her bones. "You too, Steve," she breathed, evenly, before kissing him with unrelenting and possessive forces of hunger.

Closing her eyes, Natasha fully embrace the truth solidifying over her lips; not the cunning devices of deception she had used to seduce men; it was real and filled with fire that burned through every thread of her soul. It was unadulterated. Sustainable...Release.

It was love.

* * *

Hidden in the darkness of the trees behind them, the Winter Soldier stood in stoic, his pensive intense blue eyes shrouded by sodden tresses of mussed dark hair swathed over his strong jaw. He pressed the throbbing planes of his back against the rough bark of a tree a cradled his broken arm against the Kevlar of his vest. His chilled lips fastened into a firm, grimacing line of anguish, he drew out a despondent sigh and felt the softness of words ghost over his lips as he trained his gaze on the two Avengers.

"Steve," he whispered out the familiar name in scarce, dismal breath. He felt a dull ache cut into his bruised ribs and looked directly at Steve embracing Natasha in his arms with his ghostly, hollow blue eyes. "I'm sorry." he dejected out, before turning his back and limping into the shadows. He felt the blood pour from his wounds as each drop marked his every pace and left a trail of his existence for Steve to follow.


End file.
